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Wing Joint of the Month ArchiveHoliday Wing Joint of the Month(December/January)The Cheerful TortoiseFinally, a wing joint that I can call "home" in the Pacific Northwest. It took me over a year, but I've finally found a place that is committed to offering good wings at a great price! The Cheerful Tortoise is a sports bar that is located on the southwestern corner of the Portland State University campus. For those of you who aren't aware, PSU is Oregon's largest university and is nestled in the beautiful south park blocks of downtown Portland. The Turtle (as the locals call it) has been a longstanding college bar on PSU's campus and has two other locations in the Portland area as well as a spot on the University of Oregon campus. For the past year I have been a weekly regular at the Turtle as it often provides a friendly place to enjoy a cool beverage and some spicy wings after a stressful class. The wings at the Turtle have always been a solid staple, fried naked wings with a Frank's Red Hot type sauce. If you come during normal hours you receive a good size portion for under $7. However, thanks to a brand new happy hour menu, if you come to the Turtle on any weekday between 3:00-6:00, you can get an order of 10 (good sized) wings for a whopping $2. This is by far the best value for wings that you can find anywhere from San Francisco to Seattle. After much trial and error, the wings are meaty and I am convinced that they are committed to getting the sauce better and better. Two other things that make the Cheerful Tortoise a great wing joint are their drink specials and the friendly employees. The big feature of the week at the Turtle is $1 beers on Thursday and while I still haven't been able to figure out when they offer what (sometimes you get any beer for a buck, sometimes only domestics, sometimes Rolling Rock and Lablatt's), I know that it is a good deal. Also, the waitresses are extremely friendly (and attractive) and are even so helpful to correctly add up your tip for you when you've had a few too many pints of PBR (or one of their other 20 or so tasty brews on tap, great Oregon micro selection). Finally, the GM Steve has done a great job of offering happy hour specials and turning the place around. He also seems to be committed to the wing situation and is looking into offering some additional wing sauces. As with all wing joints, there are a few things that they can work on to achieve wing joint excellence. First, the addition of different (and better) sauces would help to bump the wings up on the drummy rating scale. Second, the addition of a tiered pricing structure would assure that those of us who want to eat mass quantities of wings (ie, orders of 10, 20, 30, or 50) could do so without breaking our budget. Finally, they really need to do something about the smoke, its not going to stop me from coming to the bar, but I honestly feel like I smoked a carton after leaving the bar. Bottom line - the wings here just keep getting better with time. The management is committed to the wing scene and for $2 (at happy hour), you won't find a better wing in Oregon. Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth 3.75 Drummy Rating See their listing on the IHWDB The Cheerful Tortoise 1939 SW 6th Ave Portland, OR 97201 Tell them the Cluckbucket sent ya... (October 2002)The Anchor BarThis is part two of two in our series paying homage to the meccas of chicken. Last month we featured the original Hooters, in Clearwater, FL. And while there's no denying that Hooters has done more for the chicken wing than anyone, there wouldn't be a Hooters if it weren't for the Anchor Bar. The Anchor Bar is located in Buffalo, NY - and is the inventor of the chicken wing as we know it (yes, that's why they're called Buffalo Wings). As the story goes, owners Teressa Bellissimo and husband Frank rolled out the first wings in 1964 as a late night snack for their son's friends. The rest is history. So about two months ago, Dick Livengood, FOC (Friend of the Cluckbucket), was kind enough to make a stop at the Anchor Bar on a recent trip to Niagra Falls. Dick brought back rave reviews, along with complimentary menus and small viles of Anchor Bar hot sauce. As I checked out their web site, www.anchorbar.com, I was most pleased to see that they will overnight their wings to any location in the U.S. And since St. Louis is, in fact, a location in the U.S., I turned things over to co-worker Bruce "Homer" Colbeck. By far Bruce's greatest contribution to A.G. Edwards is his ability to shamelessly hit up our annuity and life insurance vendors for free food. Before long, Homer had convinced Kevin Riley of Protective Life Insurance to ship us 300 of the Anchor Bar's finest - 100 medium, 150 hot, and 50 suicidal. Finally the big day came, and sure enough, two big boxes arrived. All we had to do was put them in an oven for a few minutes to warm them up. Lemme tell you what, these are darn good wings. Often times the inventor of something creates it, but other people come in and advance it to much better levels. Not so here. Nearly forty years later, the Anchor Bar is still cranking out some of the best wings this planet has to offer. As usual, I didn't bother with the mediums, but the hots were perfect. Naked, good-sized wings, with a generous amount of hot sauce - but not too hot for all you wimps. Then there were the suicidal - these guys carried some pop to them, but were outstanding. Anyone who has the pleasure of trying Anchor Bar wings has to at least have a few suicidals. And thanks to this great eating experience, I've been turned on to another way to eat wings. It's very rare that I leave "wings on the table." At the end of the night, any uneaten are offered up as a sacrifice to the wing gods - however we had a bunch left over and the vultures here would never dream of throwing them out. Everyone likes cold chicken - I don't know why I never thought to eat cold chicken wings - but the next day they were almost as good eaten cold at about 9 a.m. Try it sometime... Bottom line - the wings I ate were solid 4 drummy rated wings. And if they were 4 drummies - the live, in person, Anchor Bar wings in Buffalo have to be 5 drummies. Vanilla Cluckilla 4 Drummy Rating See their listing on the IHWDB Anchor Bar 1047 Main St. Buffalo, NY Tell them the Cluckbucket sent ya... (August 2002):The Original Hooter's There are two places any chicken wing connoisseur must visit in his/her lifetime - The Anchor Bar, the originator of the chicken wing, in Buffalo, NY, and the original Hooters in Clearwater, FL. I had the pleasure of visiting the latter a few years back, when the Bear and I caught a week of spring training baseball. The original Hooters is located on Gulf-To-Bay Blvd in a busy, touristy stretch taking you (cleverly enough) the four or five miles from Tampa Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. You'd never know this is one of the Mecca's of chicken wings - it looks and acts and feels like your typical Hooters. In fact, one of the waitresses wasn't smart enough to figure out this was the original Hooters, which is probably why she got such good tips. The wings were also typical Hooters - excellent as always. Though not yet known at the time as Willie-style, we had the hot, wet, breaded (of course), and we did not go away unhappy. In addition (at least at the time), they were still using the traditional wooden plates, which I'm sad to say is a thing of the past at many Hooter's locations. 5 Drummy Rating Reiterated See their listing on the IHWDB Clearwater Hooters 2800 Gulf to Bay Blvd. 727.797.4008 Tell them the Cluckbucket sent ya... Look next month for the second restaurant in the Mecca series - The Anchor Bar. (July 2002):Show-Me's The Scoop: Right across the street from the hustle and bustle of St. Clair Square Shopping Mall in Fairview Heights, IL you can find a relaxed atmosphere, a home away from home, and a mean mean batch of chicken! Although it's been there for over ten years, the average citizen of the metro east St. Louis area still does not appreciate the genius of that which is called Show-Me's. Although at times the restaurant seems small and crowded, Show-Me's has remained true to one thing, their unbelievable wings. The wings come coated in a traditional yet unique buffalo wing sauce that has multiple layers of heat. Ask for them Willie Style, and be prepared to be amazed with a touch of sheer excellence from the hands of the gracious Chef Willie. It's a hard thing to put into words, but Willie Style wings are not all that different from regular wings, they're just cared for at a deeper level and are just that much better... Outside of the food, Show-Me's boasts the friendliest bar/kitchen/wait/management staff that exists. All of the people there are extremely friendly, chick-wing savvy, and pretty stinking good looking... Big ups to Krista, Michelle, Mindy, Sabrina, Mary Jo, and last but not least, Chef Willie. The Rating: 4 Drummies The Contact Info: Show-Me's Restaurant 200 Lincoln Highway Fairview Heights, IL 618.628.1625 Tell them the Cluckbucket sent ya...
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